


lost

by wolfoncaffeine



Series: blighted, damned, rising [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Angst, Developing Friendship, F/M, Fluff, Light Angst, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-15
Updated: 2019-08-15
Packaged: 2020-08-13 05:40:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20169064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wolfoncaffeine/pseuds/wolfoncaffeine
Summary: "It probably sounds stupid, but part of me wishes I was with him,” he said, looking both guilty and embarrassed. “In the battle. I feel like I abandoned him.”She slid her gaze away, remembering that ruin empty but for rotting corpses and a shattered mirror. “I…no, it’s not stupid.”





	lost

After Ostagar, after leaving Flemeth’s hut behind, barely half a hundred words passed between the three of them for a few days. They set up camp, ate, arranged watches, tore down camp, trekked, and set up camp again in near silence. Morrigan kept to herself, pitching her tent within sight but nearly out of earshot, and leading them through the wilderness a dozen paces ahead. Alistair was usually near, though that seemed to be more coincidence than choice; his shoulders were perpetually slumped, gaze distant. Whatever thoughts occupied them they didn’t share. For her own part, Raan tried to avoid thinking of anything beyond guessing at how far off Lothering was. Morrigan had lead them well away from the Imperial Highway to avoid any darkspawn. Raan couldn’t complain. Even if their going was slow, it’d still be faster than the horde’s. Safer, too.

Of course trying not to think about it led to thinking about it. _We’re all that’s left._

She and Alistair’d watched the battle from the tower. They’d been too high up to pick out individuals, but just high enough to see the lines dissolve into chaos. Loghain’s forces didn’t appear. She remembered nausea, a horrible lump that rolled up her throat, as she stared down. Minutes later, she fumbled an arrow from her quiver, nocked it to her bow, and watched the barricaded door shake.

The darkspawn broke the door down in moments. Her arrows caught the first one in the throat and the second in its howling mouth, before quarrels punched through her and she fell.

She woke up on narrow cot and learned from Morrigan what had happened.

_We’re all that’s left._

Trying to ignore how her stomach dropped, she kept walking.

Her thoughts also wandered, inevitably, to her clan. _I left them a month ago,_ she realized, counting back later that night. With luck, by now Marethari would’ve led Sabrae to the coast and secured passage across the sea. Had Rhea and Isa’s baby been born safely? Was Pol’s archery improving? Had Merrill found any ruins along their path? Did Marethari intend to lead them into the Planasene Forest or up to the Minanter basin? Lana was there, on the Amaranthine coast with her new clan.

Sitting with her back to their dying campfire, she slid an arrowhead along the whetstone. _Even if I survive the Blight, it’ll years before I get any news._ She paused, halfway through the motion. _If I survive. Alistair and I are the only Wardens this side of the Frostbacks, and if the Orlesian ones don’t come…._ She kept sharpening._ Whatever. We have those treaties. That’ll be en—_

Her grip faltered, and the arrowhead sliced along her thumb. She hissed, dropping the tiny blade and squeezing her thumb in her fist. _Stupid, stupid. Tamlen will —_

She froze, snared in the thought, staring at the blood seeping around her fingers. _Tamlen would tease me for days._

Heavy steps thumped and Nulen appeared, bumping her shoulder with a soft whine.

She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, then scratched the mabari’s ears. _Where’d you go?_

“You okay?”

She stiffened and looked at her shoulder at Alistair, blinking dully at her. “Fine. Just cut my thumb.” She peered at it, then rooted in her bag for a roll of gauze. _Not too deep._ “Your watch isn’t for another couple hours, ya know.”

Nulen huffed at Alistair as the shem approached, then curled up against her thigh.

“I know. I couldn’t sleep, figured I could take over for you.”

She glanced at him as he sat down next to her, with Nulen between them. Dark half-moons marked the skin under his vacant gaze. _If not for the taint, I don’t think he’d notice a darkspawn if it smacked him,_ she thought, wrapping her thumb. “I’ve gotta finish prepping these.”

Staring into the darkness, he grunted.

She shrugged, tucked the gauze away, and picked up her arrowhead.

Their corner of the wilderness dropped into quiet, pricked only by the scrape of steel on stone and Nulen’s rumbling snores. Moonlight slipped into the grove, shifting from golden to silvery to snowy. Raan sharpened every spent arrowhead, some forty total, until its edges shone.

Wood snapped.

Not pausing in her work, she tilted one ear toward the sound to hear a four-footed gait. She turned her head enough to glimpse a pair of gleaming eyes, low to the ground, before the creature slipped away.

She glanced at Alistair. He hadn’t moved, hadn’t even noticed.

He hadn’t seemed to notice much of anything for days, or made any efforts beyond walking and eating, and his jokes had vanished like ripe berries from a bush. _Of course they did,_ she thought with a wince._ The Wardens are gone, and his mentor with them._

She sharpened the last few arrowheads, then wrapped them all in a fold of leather and stuffed everything into her bag. “Alistair?” she said, peering around his shoulder.

“What?” His voice was flat.

“Do you wanna talk?”

“About what?”

“Um, about Duncan.”

His shoulders slumped even further. “You…you don’t have to do that. I know you barely knew him.”

“No, but he was kind to me. Even when I wasn’t…kind in return.” She’d cursed him vehemently when he insisted that Tamlen was beyond help, then barely spoke to him for days._ And we can’t have you this distracted._

He dragged a hand over his face, muffling his voice. “I should have handled it better. Duncan warned me right from the beginning that this could happen. Any of us could die in battle. I shouldn’t have lost it,” he said, words quickening, “not when so much is riding on us, not with the Blight and —” He stopped, fists clenching, and twisted to face her. “And everything. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. You don’t need to apologize.”

He relaxed a little. “I’d like to have a proper funeral for him. Maybe once all this is done, if we’re still alive. I don’t think he had any family to speak of.”

“You?”

Something crossed his face, some emotion she didn’t catch. “I suppose he did. It probably sounds stupid, but part of me wishes I was with him,” he said, looking both guilty and embarrassed. “_In_ the battle. I feel like I abandoned him.”

She slid her gaze away, remembering that ruin empty but for rotting corpses and a shattered mirror. “I…no, it’s not stupid.”

“Of course I’d be dead then, wouldn’t I? It’s not like that would make him happier,” he mumbled.

She nodded, somehow mortified and relieved all at once.

He blew out a breath. “He said he came from Highever. Maybe I’ll go up there sometime, see about putting something up in his honour. I don’t know,” he said, shrugging.

“Maybe I could go with you, when you go.” she said, as much out of a genuine desire as wanting to shift the conversation.

“I’d like that. So would he, I think. We won’t be able to scatter his ashes but…. The Dalish don’t practice cremation, do you? How do you honour your dead?”

Her thoughts stuttered. “We…we bury them and plant trees over the graves.”

He smiled and the genuine warmth stung. “That sounds quite beautiful, life springing from death.”

She couldn’t keep her expression from crumpling.

Alistair blinked, his own shifting to alarm. “What’s wrong? Did I — oh. Have you…had someone close to you die? Not that I’m trying to pry, I just….”

She drew her knees to her chest, provoking a sigh from Nulen. “No. Well, yes, my parents, but I was newborn. I don’t remember them.” She frowned at her feet. She’d never intended to even mention Tamlen, but maybe, maybe the pain would ease a little. Ashalle always claimed it would. _But he’s alive_.

The words slipped out anyway. “But, just before Duncan arrived at our camp, a friend disappeared. We were exploring a ruin and found a weird artifact, a mirror. Tamlen touched it and released something. It’s how I got tainted. I fainted and, when I woke up, I was outside and Tamlen…wasn’t.

She inhaled shakily. “We searched for him but no one found any trace, in the ruins or anywhere within miles of camp. Duncan didn’t believe he could’ve survived, without treatment. But if Tamlen was as ill as I was, how could he’ve been conscious at all, much less disappear? But everyone else, except maybe our friends, thought him dead, too, and our Keeper insisted on a funeral. Even without a — they’ll have planted a tree for him.”

She rubbed her eyes. _No fucking tears. He’s alive. He is. I’ll find him._ “Sorry for unloading,” she muttered and twisted away, under the pretence of reorganizing her bag.

“Hey, no, wait. I did ask. And you listened to me, so, uh, the least I can do is listen to you. Do you want to look for him? For Tamlen?”

She forced a scoff. “Of course, but gathering an army is gonna take precedence.”

“This army-gathering _is_ going to take us all over Fereldan. We can keep a lookout, at least. Right?”

“Right.” She shifted a few more things, then turned back and folded her legs beneath her. Nulen, perhaps taking her shifting for encouragement, rolled onto his back.

“Too sweet for a wardog,” she said, rubbing his belly.

“That’s just what mabari are like.” Alistair presented a hand to Nulen, who sniffed then licked it. “Did you decide on a name for him, yet?”

“Yeah. Nulen.”

“Nulen? Is that Elven?”

“Yeah.”

“And? Does it mean something?”

She huffed. “Essentially ‘fated friend.’ He survived Ostagar, somehow, and found me. Seemed appropriate.”

“Hm, I would’ve gone with ‘Barkspawn,’ but it’s sweet.”

She couldn’t keep the incredulity from her voice. “_Bark_spawn?”

“Well, it’s true! He spawns very terrifying barks, doesn’t he? Don’t you?” he cooed at Nulen, who barked in a particularly un-terrifying way.

_Better a weak joke than none._ She tugged gently on one of the mabari’s paws. “Don’t encourage him, Nu.”

“Oh, tired of Blight puns?” He grinned and a little light seemed to return to his eyes. “Taint your fancy?

She stood, groaning. “Think of better ones. Taint nothing to joke about.”

“I thought that was — hey!”

She snorted his expression, caught somewhere between mock-offended and truly amused, and clucked her tongue at Nulen. “G’night, Alistair. Don’t let the darkspawn bite.”

**Author's Note:**

> (Eir)Lana is my worldstate's future Inquisitor and [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10734969) is the story that Raan alludes to.


End file.
